MAY 10, 2006

Ide loses his superlicence

The Permanent Bureau of the Formula 1 Commission has decided to withdraw Yuji Ide's Superlicence with immediate effect. The body is made up of FIA President Max Mosley, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone and two team representatives (one of which is always Ferrari). At the moment the fourth member of the Bureau is Frank Williams. The job of this organization is to make decisions that are usually made by the F1 Commission that need immediate attention. The request from the Permanent Bureau was sent to the Japanese Automobile Federation (JAF) that then informed the team. This means that Franck Montagny will stay with the team for the next two races as there is no time for the team to do anything else.

The decision is a major blow to Ide and to the Super Aguri team which wants to have Japanese drivers. The problem is that there are simply not enough available who qualify for a superlicence. Ide qualified for his superlicence as a top three finisher in the Formula Nippon Championship last year. As he did not have F1 experience his superlicence was granted with a

probation period. Usually a driver should have completed 300 miles of running but this was impossible for Ide because testing before the start of the season was impossible for Super Aguri.

The team says that it is with "sadness and regret" that it accepts the decision but said that the team will try to help Ide find other opportunities and will hopefully bring him back to F1 one day.